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How tradition
becomes tomorrow
An interview with Henry Becton
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Drawing on the past
to inspire the future
Henry P. Becton is the son of BD co-founder
Maxwell W. Becton. He joined the Board of
Directors in 1939, served as Executive Vice
President beginning in 1948 and was a leader
of the Company for the next 26 years. He retired
as Vice Chairman of the Board in 1986 and
became Director Emeritus, a title he retains today. |
Q. What was it about the two founders that
“clicked?”
A. Fortunately, they turned out to be complementary
to each other. My father, Maxwell Becton, was
the salesman, and Fairleigh Dickinson had the manufacturing
and distribution savvy. My father had sold
real estate in Montana and later with a little firm in
Austin, Texas. Dickinson had worked for the Singer
Sewing Machine Company. They made a great team.
Q.Do you see those very same skills driving the
Company today?
A. Absolutely, and something else that has always
pleased me is that all of our leaders have come from
within the Company. My father and Mr. Dickinson
ran the Company for 50 years, followed by their
sons, Dick Dickinson and me, for another 26. Since
then, we’ve been fortunate enough to have as our
CEOs people who have grown up in the Company.
Jack Howe joined BD in 1949 and became CEO in
1974. He was succeeded by Ray Gilmartin, who
joined the Company in 1975 and became CEO in
1992. Clateo Castellini joined the Company in Brazil
in the ’70s and became CEO when Ray Gilmartin
departed to head Merck in 1994. Ed Ludwig joined
BD in 1979 and served in financial management, strategic planning and operations before becoming
CFO and, ultimately, CEO in 2000 and Chairman
in 2002. We never had to go outside and select
someone who didn’t have a good feel for what BD
is all about.
Q. While BD has engaged in strategic acquisitions
over the years, it has largely generated its own
growth and preserved its own culture. What values
have driven that behavior?
A. The founders were always very concerned about
pleasing the customer, so they listened to what the
customer wanted. They believed that customers were
a great source of ideas, and they developed those ideas into new products. They also took the idea of
customer service very seriously, so they put a lot of
emphasis on things like delivering on time. They also
believed very strongly in a value that is still a cornerstone
of BD’s way of operating today, and that is
doing what is right for both the customer and the
patient. And, you can’t overlook the ideal that is captured
in the thought, “Helping all people live healthy
lives.” I was just at a meeting of our BD alumni
association, a retiree organization. They are all very
pleased to look back on their careers and know that
they worked for a company that helps people.
Q. Is there any single event from your career with
the Company or your knowledge of it that stands out
above others?
A. I think the most important event in my tenure
with the Company was the development of sterile
disposable syringes and needles. By the 1950s, the
disposable revolution was taking place. We had
borrowed to invest in new manufacturing systems,
but still didn’t have sufficient capital. So, we took
the Company public in 1962, and we were listed on
the New York Stock Exchange. That conversion to
being a mass producer of sterile disposable devices
marked our transformation from a craft company
to a manufacturing company. This wasn’t something
that flowed from the old to the new…it was all
entirely new processes.
Q.What did you think 35 years later when the
Company invested several hundred million dollars
in the conversion to safety-engineered products?
A. We had been working in various ways to make products
safer, including conducting education campaigns
focused on proper disposal, so it was not a big surprise
to me when we made the commitment. The real
breakthrough came with designs that permitted the
needle point to be withdrawn or shielded once the
device had been used. Of course, those products were
much more complex to manufacture, so once again
we had to develop entirely new processes at considerable
cost.
Q. Do you think anyone in the early decades ever
envisioned a BD that would derive about half its revenues
from countries outside the U.S.?
A. Because BD got its start importing syringes from
Europe, the Company has always been comfortable
in a global arena. The idea of looking at regions such
as Europe as markets and not just sources of supply
actually took hold quite early. By the end of World
War I, BD had hired its first export manager. Until
establishing BD Canada in 1951 and followed by
BD Mexico a year later, the Company was just an
exporter. In ’53 we also opened a manufacturing
plant in France. Today, I believe BD employees work
at more than 200 locations in 50 countries, including
45 manufacturing facilities.
Q. How do you see the creation and growth
of BD Biosciences in terms of BD’s tradition of
ongoing, progressive change?
A. It opens up a whole new range of possibilities
for the future, but it really traces to BD’s capabilities
in diagnostic medicine, and that goes back to the
1950s. Starting in the late 1970s, the Company was
a growing factor in diagnostic instruments based on
the success of the BD BACTEC line. Also in the
1970s, Jack Howe had the intuition to extend the
Company’s capabilities. Bernie Shoor, who headed
research and development at the time, had connections
with researchers at Stanford University and
they teamed to develop the original fluorescence
activated cell sorter (BD FACS) machine. That was the basis for today’s BD Biosciences business. A
great deal of credit has to go to Jack Howe because
he could see the future of cellular imaging while the
rest of us were involved in syringes and needles.
He understood that it wouldn’t be profitable for a
few years, but he stuck with it.
 Q. Would your father and Mr. Dickinson recognize
BD today?
A. Yes and no. They’d recognize the values and I
think they’d be particularly interested in the emphasis
on quality, as that was one of the things they continually
stressed. But, in another sense, this would be
very foreign to them. Theirs was a world of glass and
reusable products. Today’s world is plastic, digital and disposable. I even have a hard time understanding
the BD Biosciences businessfor them it would
be beyond belief.
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